The Value Of A Single Person

In an effort to address the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, Congress will meet for an emergency session either tonight or Friday morning. Needed is an immediate infusion of cash to keep up with the $500 million a day FEMA is pouring into efforts to stop the flooding and provide relief to the tens of thousands of homeless. More than $10 billion will likely be approved just for the immediate costs. Many billions more will be needed in the future.

It's quite noble for our legislators to interrupt their vacations to make sure this money is available. Not all of them need to be there, since the measure can be approved by unanimous consent, but still, just four or five days after the hurricane hit, Congress is swinging into action to help people out.

This reminds me of the last time Congress was called into emergency session. It wasn't for a hurricane or other disaster relief, though. It was Sunday, March 20, 2005. That Friday, the husband of Terri Schiavo won a court case allowing him to remove Terri's feeding tube. By Saturday, Schiavo's parents asked the federal government to intervene. Lawmakers flew back from their Easter vacation (again, not all of them, but enough to pass a bill), and on Sunday, passed a bill to transfer jurisdiction to the federal courts. Bush signed it Monday morning.

So, when distraught parents were desperately trying to keep nutrients flowing into a dead woman, Congress snapped into action in a day. When a major American city is close to being wiped off the map, when tens of thousands of people are suffocating together in the stench of shelters, when looters are ransacking businesses (some to get what they need to survive, others to get merely what they think they want), when we witness on television civilization for these people falling away -- it takes five days for Congress to respond.

I guess we all have our priorities.